Cell-phone induced health hazards

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Offline ishaquemijee

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Cell-phone induced health hazards
« on: December 27, 2011, 09:03:35 AM »
In dealing with the subject "Is mobile phone safe?", I shall begin by reiterating an important fact as to why truth about cell phone radiation is hidden from public and thereafter state the science of cell phone radiation and refer to recent studies on the safety of cell phone.  Two comments that "WHO' s labeling of mobile phone radiation as a "possibility of its being carcinogenic" is probably generating apprehension among mobile phone users" and he thought, "this is a bit premature" and that "the popular media make it sound much more dangerous than it really is, and cause an unnecessary scare" need to be addressed.
 
First, unlike various issues in physics, which are proven by mathematics and then experimentally verified, health science is far from perfect. Health science as of now relies mostly on statistical models based on experiments with animals and often times on trial and error. Why should pharmaceutical companies selling medicines and industrial enterprises marketing products reveal such research findings as provide ample evidence to establish that their products could cause health problems? Revelation of unbiased truth does not make commercial sense at all. In many cases, pharmaceutical companies are to market, with prior permission from their regulatory bodies, medicinal products that are likely to cause health problems and even in a few percentage of cases death to patients taking them, because those medicines cure diseases that are otherwise incurable. Doctors prescribing them always consider if the beneficial effects of the medicines outweigh possible adverse side effects. In case of industrial products, no such compulsion to use them exists if the products are hazardous.

Verily, cell phone is an integral part of modern civilization. We can't part with it, but by taking some precautionary measures, exposure to radiation can be minimized. When there is apprehension about health risk, is it not necessary to take precautionary measures to avoid risk as far as practicable? Will it be prudent not to take any action and continue using cell phone without any precaution, particularly because some studies found no definite connection or link between cell phone use and cancer and other health problems? When our health is the issue, we must look at which organizations have conducted those studies and if the findings are conclusive. Are the companies marketing cell phones display any warning? Yes, they now incorporate a paragraph in users' manual warning people not to make any body contact while using cell phones. Various companies record various safe distances ranging from 1 inch to 0.8 inch that users should keep cell phones away from their ear in order to minimize exposure to radiation to a level that may not be harmful. How many of us care to read manuals and find out if there is any warning?

Human mind is not conditioned to look for warning sign from the jumble of users' manual. Trillion dollar Telephone Industry is aware of this and as such it does not post warning sign on the product itself, but it does only in the users' manual, which very few will care to read. Those who read and those who hear from others are least bothered to take warning seriously as they see no discernible health problems the users are suffering from in the short term. The bigger problem to ensure public safety is that, apart from public apathy to gain insight into hazards from environmental degradation and electronic gadgets, industrial enterprises, particularly the trillion dollar cellular phone industry deliberately hide from public domain many research findings that their scientists came up with.

How many of us know about Frey Effect named after the American Neuroscientist Allan H. Frey, which is a syndrome that manifests in audible clicks induced by pulsed/ modulated microwave frequencies? The clicks are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device. The cell phone industry very well know two renowned scientists in the field of radiation- Om Gandhi and Franz Adlkofer who worked for the industry and did extensive research on the effects of radio frequencies on human health. These two scientists who worked for the industry later fell foul of the latter because they published a few papers, which the industry did not like and found deleterious to the promotion of cell phones. Cover-up of scientific truth is a strategy that many industries employ when they found that revelation of certain research findings might harm promotion of their products and even could implicate them in huge litigation's in future.

This happened to tobacco industry. Pharmaceutical companies also apply this strategy as and when necessary. Although, there are innumerable instances, I just wish to cite one. As is widely known, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Plc. is a global multidimensional pharmaceutical and healthcare company, formed in 2000 through the merger and acquisition of a number of companies, Glaxo Plc being the parent company. It had invented and marketed ranitidine, a H2 blocker under the trade name zantac possibly in 1970s.The medicine was prescribed to treat peptic ulcers and other abdominal conditions in the upper GI tract. The medicine had been one of the best seller in the modern pharmaceutical history and generating considerable revenue for the company since it had been first marketed, until of course the arrival of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). In 1982, Dr. Barry John Marshall and Dr. J. Robin Warren of Perth, Western Australia found a bacteria later named Helicobacter Pylori (H. pylori) in the stomachs of patients with gastritis and gastric and duodenal ulcers and cured them with combination of antibiotics and acid reducers like H2 blocker, most effective bein